Venard made several other still lifes at this period showing a fish on a plate with tall narrow-stemmed fruit bowls, flower vases, candlesticks, etc., those most closely related being one still in his own possession (with more or less the same elements, but with the fish in the right foreground and turned to the left) and another in the collection of Mme Danièle Darrieux. Walter Goetz, who obtained this gift for the Tate, told the compiler in 1959 that this picture was made in 1957, but the artist wrote on 3 October 1976 that it must date from approximately 1955-6.

Published in:Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.746, reproduced p.746